Don't let the fancy attire and the Gilded Age setting fool you, there is nasty business afoot in "The Current War."
It's a power struggle, both literal and societal, with Benedict Cumberbatch as inventor Thomas Edison on one side, Michael Shannon as industrialist George Westinghouse on the other, Nicholas Hoult as eccentric visionary Nikola Tesla in the middle and the future of electricity in America hanging in the balance.
In theaters Friday, Oct. 25, the film is a tale of innovation advanced via moral compromise. There are dead animals, corporate espionage, even the invention of the electric chair all deployed in the battle to determine whether Edison's direct current or Westinghouse's alternating current would light up the nation.
It's a story rife with tragedy and squandered potential. more
